Performing
The Swan: a practice guide.
It lives! First off, thanks to the people who bought the first guide. Here’s the second one, dedicated to a piece that means so much to so many. Next up, some Bach!
adding it up
Now and again I go for a jog without music. After the crunchy/clear headed/isn’t this moment grand thing passes (and it does, without fail), I return to the usual fragmented contemplation that running is supposed to help alleviate. Cresting a hill today, an equation popped onto my mental chalkboard, the results of which were too [...]
bubbada bubbada
By hook, crook, bell, book and candle, I managed to infiltrate the ranks of the jazz department when I was at CSUN. Classically trained folks are usually a liability in such settings: stuck to the page, desperate for someone to just tell us what to play. I carved something of a niche for [...]
Inspiration, it's been too long. Welcome back. #fb
better late than never
Finally whipped up the next 2 chapters in the YouTube series previewing AMCM. Recorded in the conservatory of the Josephine Butler center here in DC.
Read Moresummertime
Summer leaves the student musician with two options. 1. Get completely rusty and sound like Dorky McDorkersons come September. and 2. Be completely invigorated and sound like RockStar McAwesomepants come September. Like Black Sheep said: the choice is yours. Just a few summer music opportunities for kids: Levine School [...]
Read Moreof note
As the blogsophere continues to change under the fickle and shifting sands of internet cachet, one thing remains: good stuff is good stuff. The advent of Blogger, WordPress and Tumblr has made it easy for anyone with access to the internet and an inclination to opine to have a nice-looking page from which to [...]
Read MoreThe Swan: a practice guide.
It lives! First off, thanks to the people who bought the first guide. Here’s the second one, dedicated to a piece that means so much to so many. Next up, some Bach!
Read Morebe smart.
Fact: I had to counsel a 9-year-old to lay off for a few weeks because she was developing tendinitis as a result of tension and misuse of her 4th finger. Fact: I began dealing with tension-induced injuries around age 12. My current ability to play comes courtesy of luck, surgery, yoga, miles of [...]
Read MoreDVD project!
I wrote AMCM to try and fill some of the gaps in the “how-to” canon. Mostly, I thought we needed a text featuring a bunch of pictures and the occasional justification/explanation for certain bits of technique. There’s another volume in the works- I have all of the content down, but this time I’m trying [...]
Read Moreletting go
Lindy hop as metaphor: my instructor constantly has to remind me to wait for a lead and then follow it to the end of the momentum, as I’m awfully clever at guessing what I think will happen… …and even if that’s not what my partner means, he’s forced to do it anyway. Probably a good [...]
Read Morenew adventures in music geekery
Perhaps it was growing up around a dad who seemed to know how everything worked (right down to the subatomic level) or maybe I’m just a junkie for the pedagogical process, but I’ve always wanted to learn how to rehair bows and work on instruments. I’ve haunted benches from Los Angeles to London and [...]
Read Moreperfectly imperfect practice
Practice is good. Common sense tells us it’s necessary for progress and essential to maintain our skill. In my lessons, I rarely teach people how to play- it’s mostly about diagnosing what makes something difficult and then developing strategies and routines designed to break down the difficulty. I teach people how to practice. The playing [...]
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